The comics blogiverse is an increasingly diverse network of comics pundits, fans and fanatics — not to mention professional creators themselves — where one can find a variety of fascinating and/or obnoxious opinions to suit any taste, or lack thereof. Every Saturday, I’ll offer up excerpts from five of the more interesting, thought-provoking posts I’ve come across over the past week, for better or worse.

This week, it’s a special themed edition as there’s been much interesting discussion about the future of comics, and what format shall rule them all. I cheated a little bit with one post that I’ve been saving since February for exactly a moment like this, and another that skews the debate in a completely different, but not unrelated direction. Read! Click! Enjoy!

We Warned You: The Death Knell of the Pamphlet
Ink Destroyed My Brush

I cracked open Jane Austen the other night, and ask yourself, should I bother reading Sense and Sensibility if I have to track down the 6 issues to find out what Mr. Darcy is really up to? No, its a contained work with a beginning, middle and end. Is there any reason that I shouldn’t be reading it because the author is dead? No, the book is a good read, and will always be new to the person that picks it up tomorrow. So will Maus, so will Dark Knight, so will Watchmen. Can you imagine trying to get an adult to read Watchmen if they kept trying to hunt down all 12 issues of a 20 year old mini-series? The publisher should be able to keep good works in print as long as there is demand, which benefits their back catalog and makes a good artist/author something to potentially live on more than the next paycheck for the next 22 page story.

Welcome to the world of adult publishing, comic companies. It may make you less reliant on gimmicks and endless cliffhangers, but you’re creating a long term future for the business and for the readers who care about the medium.

The future of comics and graphic novels… and my utopian hopes.
The Witching Hour by Tania del Rio

I find it so frustrating that this industry, one that provides good entertainment, that encourages kids to read, that inspires and gets imaginations flowing, that leads to blockbuster movies and merchandising, would have so little money to spend on the hardworking artists that are a part of it. I just did a 3-panel comic strip for a soft drink company and I got paid more for that one strip than I do for a whole issue of writing and drawing Sabrina! They’re not even going to end up using it and I still got paid for it. Why is it that advertising has so much money to burn? That’s a rhetorical question, of course.One just has to open up any floppy to see that advertising is probably the one thing keeping this industry afloat. (And it makes me wonder how much the people drawing those Goldfish cracker comics actually get paid…) That aside, I sometimes feel that a big comics union would be a good thing for artists… but that would probably be pointless anyway, since most of us are freelancers. It’s not like we can start demanding higher “salaries” or “benefits”.

Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m trying to say other than that I share Becky’s frustration with the way things are going. I don’t want to see this industry die, but I don’t especially like where it’s going, either…

Interview with Dan Vado
SLG: Better Comics Through Superior Firepower

The transition to physical product to digital is an interesting one to me. Did anyone ever have an epiphany that, mp3s are the way of the future!? I didn’t. I just downloaded music from Napster like everyone else did, and now here in 2007, I haven’t stepped foot in a CD store in months and yet I have all this new music from eMusic or iTunes. It was a transition, not a jolt, became a natural part of life without any shock to my sensibilities.

Will it be the same for comics? Well, it’s a bit different, since reading a comic as a tactile experience is different from reading it on screen in a way that listening to a CD and an mp3 are not (though we all know of people who insist on vinyl!). But it’s certainly something that I think will become the norm as more and more people grow to find reading comics on a screen a natural experience rather than a “Boyhowdy, that’s not the way it was done when I was a lass!” one.

A Few Random Notes on Digital Comics
The Comics Reporter

Except for that minority of people who can’t stand to read any comics at all on the computers, and what assumes is another minority out there that all hate paper comics, the bulk of the argument has pushed far past the simple paper vs. computer screen binary. There are a variety of different comics-reading experiences, some of which are best served for people on a computer screen and some of which are best served on paper. There are also some where it doesn’t matter. There are a lot of comics I’d be happy to get as a download — I’d have loved to have seen that Captain America gets shot comic book the day it came out, and would be happy to have others around for research — and a metric ton of comics I can’t imagine buying that way. I think it’s a more complex market than the way it’s usually argued, and it’s not one we may understand until ten years after companies and creators are fully invested in it.

Online Fan Interaction: Friend or Foe?
Howling Curmudgeons

It’s well-documented that online interaction lists to anger and insults more often and far quicker than face-to-face interaction for a variety of reasons (and lord knows we’ve seen it here, too). My gut reaction is to say that if I were a pro I’d hit as many cons and comic shop signings as I could manage, but I would generally avoid online forums because they’re more grief than they’re worth (plus, I know that I don’t have the self-discipline to ignore someone who ticked me off for whatever reason, and I too would come off as an ass in the ensuing digital catfight).

But would that be a mistake? Do you think that pros win over new fans through interacting with fans online? Do they make existing fans more loyal, more apt to try any new book the creator works on? More than they lose by coming off jerky in the inevitable online arguments?